


Cautious Entanglement

by firjii



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Hugs, Light Angst, Nervous Fenris, Touch Phobic, Touch-Starved, cuddles (sort of?), embraces, happy ending (sort of?), supportive Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 00:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firjii/pseuds/firjii
Summary: Secretly hoping for a certain simple yet profound gesture but also too skittish to ask it of Hawke, Fenris is surprised by Hawke's straightforward suggestion - one whose nature and timing both terrify and thrill him.





	Cautious Entanglement

She grins – not expectantly, not demandingly, but only a grin. _Hers_ , the one that he has never seen the likes of among the thousands of other faces he’s encountered.

She murmurs the question again, but the words blur together in his ears. He heard her the first time. The hearth is some yards away and only has a mild fire set in it, but he sweats as intensely as a stuck pig, even on this far side of the room. He swallows. He tries to speak, but the word sticks in his throat almost before he can begin vocalizing it.

With the same effort it takes to maneuver his sword in combat, he nods. A ghost of a smile almost surfaces for an instant. Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this what he tried to ask dozens of times? Of course. It’s only that it still comes sooner than he thought – too soon.

But he refuses to turn away. He won’t let his fear rule him this time. The moment is now, not then – not the past, and not…not _that_. He is his own master now – but sometimes, that means taking a risk. This shouldn’t be a risk. He knows that. But still, it _is_ one.

She reaches a hand out – again, an offer, not a demand. He braces himself for the irritated nerve endings that the touch might induce, but he doesn’t hesitate. He laces his fingers between hers, still remembering that moment some weeks past and the two times since then. 

They walk towards the hearth, their steps synchronized. She sits first, leaning against the leg of a musty armchair. He lets go of her hand, the distance to the floor suddenly a year’s march through Tevinter wastelands. She looks up at him and the distance is bridged, the ugly thought no more vivid than breathing. She reaches for a cushion on the chair and places it on the floor next to her with a dull _thump_. He swallows again. She pats it.

His lanky legs fold neatly under him as he glides down. He leans against the chair. How should he lean back? What should he do with his hands? He blinks. What nonsense. His shoulders nonetheless crumple into tense readiness. This – this is not what he’d prepared himself for. Perhaps he hadn’t prepared at all.

She watches him. She soon cocks her head. He doesn’t need to look at her. He feels her eyes on him. But instead of speaking, she laughs: a gentle rumble of a chuckle from deep within her ribs, the thing he’s heard some Fereldans call a “belly laugh.” The noise surprises him. He’s heard her snicker before now, perhaps even cackle drunkenly now and then, but this is different. This is – contentment?

The sounds that escape her throat draw his eyes onto her. Again, her smile is simply that: a smile. She stills herself to an unusual degree, a most distinctive gesture. This _is_ Hawke, after all. The dull light from the hearth casts a halo around her head and alters her weathered, almost swarthy complexion, simultaneously casting an inviting glow and adding another layer of unfathomable pondering to her expression. Time has not treated her well. She does not yet have thirty years to her name, but there is weariness underneath her spastic humor and energetic diplomacy.

He can change that, if only for a moment. He can change that as much as _she_ can change _him_ , if only for a moment. She knows this as well as he does. Perhaps it’s even the reason why she suggested the idea.

Neither asking nor invading, she leans into his shoulder, just enough to put weight against his rotator cup but not so deeply that she can’t crane her neck upward to look at him. She reaches around him, her arms as short as they are muscular. She barely manages it. He leans into her a little to make the stretch easier. Her free hand joins the first. He soon does the same.

He sighs – but no more or less than a sigh. Perhaps this isn’t as difficult as he presumed. He rests his head on hers and closes his eyes. His smile returns, not only for an instant this time. His face begins to move in earnest. His stilted arms transform into an embrace – not a plea, not an apology, not an appeasement. Only closeness. Hawke has taught him well, even if he cannot always remember such a lesson.

But then it happens. His brow crinkles a fraction – and then much more than a fraction. He stifles a groan enough to turn it into a toneless hum of pensiveness. He wrenches his eyes open, and the interruption is more disruptive than the pain it brings with it.

Waves come over him – not lust, not fear. Something else. At first, he only fights the instinct to flinch away. The reflex is impossible to unlearn, but at least it has become easier to notice – and if he can notice it sooner, he can push himself past it. This ache is different, because he _chooses_ it. It only registers externally as a slight twitch through an arm.

But then the other instinct comes, and that one is harder to fight: the one that drives him to summon the lyrium in his skin. She can’t know. He won’t show her that. It’s wrong. It’s another reflex honed too well from years of necessity and need. It was a logical reaction in another world. He’d even welcomed it at times – the sooner he could bring it forth, the sooner the task was finished. If it had to be done, better that it was done cleanly and quickly. It was useful – for hate, for bloody justice, for killing, maybe even for release of a sort.

But this, here with Hawke, is not something to be taken lightly – and even if the voice in his mind is still only a whisper, it is telling him that he shouldn’t be too eager to rush it. He cannot hope to feel like a free man if he lets himself believe that a hasty gesture here and there will be enough to undo the past. And it wouldn’t be what _she_ wanted, either. No one asks this of someone else if they only seek to rush beyond it to the next moment.

And the moment is long – so long. Too long. Not long enough.

He shakes, and yet he refuses to let her go. He trembles as a child does when alone in the depths of nightfall, and yet he is not alone. He swallows, much more labored than before. The movement is sufficiently noticeable that Hawke picks her head up. She separates her hands and holds his face. She touches her forehead to his. He closes his eyes again, shaking all the while. “It’s alright,” she murmurs smoothly. “It’s alright.”

This time, the words swim in a blur but rise above the water like crisp beams of light. He listens for their clarity. He listens for his guide. She repeats the phrase several more times, each instance gradually more distinct until he hears it as a lone shout against the murky befuddlement he is so accustomed to.

“It’s alright.” Her mutter resonates and echoes through his skull with all the power of a master’s command. But she is not a master, and this is no command. She is a savior, and this is – an unfettering?

 His shaking dulls after a time. His hands still tremble and twitch, but his arms are steadfast around her, both protector and protected. “I know,” he whispers. Despite the stinging and burning coursing through the skin on every limb – and despite the steep price of this indulgent whim – he refuses to let go.

He grins, fledgling joy outweighing the jitters of his chin. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is thoroughly dorky and I'm not even sorry about that because this is how I see Fenris: desperate to move forward but utterly unable to do so without Hawke's help for even the smallest niceties.


End file.
